Ask HN: What is the best way to decide what books to read? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is the best way to decide what books to read?

9 pointsgallerdude10 comments

Recently I've been going to the library and really digging it, but I feel like judging books by their cover is pretty inefficient. How do you decide what books to read?

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I judge books by reading a page or two. You can't magically know if the entire book's good, or bad, unfortunately.

Otherwise, ask for recommendations, your friends, colleagues and family probably (hopefully) share some of your interests. Or ask around in the library itself, librarians always like talking about books, for obvious reasons ;p

The way how I usually choose my next read is by recommendations. It maybe a friend or someone I really admire. I could go over their reading list, check out the book reviews, ask my friends and pick the book.

I'm also working on my own project called Booknshelf which helps people to discover great books on different topics. It's still in an early stage but I'm excited to push it forward. It was featured on "Show HN" yesterday but here is the link https://booknshelf.com/.

I was reminded of this advice from Ryan Holiday--

Reading to lead or learn requires that you treat your brain like the muscle that it is–lifting the subjects with the most tension and weight. For me, that means pushing ahead into subjects you’re not familiar with and wresting with them until you can–shying away from the “easy read.” > https://ryanholiday.net/read-to-lead-how-to-digest-books-abo...

I generally try to follow a theme of books.

For example, I read the following books:

1) Counter-Insurgency: Theory and Practice (superb book) 2) General Patraeus 3) Obama: The Long Game 4) Ben Bernanke: The Courage to Act

As you can see, the books transition from warfare, to politics, to economics; each book is related to the other - this helps me really grasp all the factors at play within subsequent books

Most of the blogs I read on a regular basis will have an About section or What I'm Reading List. I get most of my book recommendations that way. Some authors will have e-mail lists talking about what they've been reading. Ryan Holiday does this.

Another way is to find an author that you really click with and just read everything that he/she has ever written.

There are some nice online book recommendations website. Most of the time I use Good Reads [0] or What Should I Read Next [1]

[0] https://www.goodreads.com

[1] http://whatshouldireadnext.com

Whenever I see a book that seems interesting I add it to my to-read list which I use Goodreads for. I have a script that will randomly select a book from the list and if it still seems interesting to me then I'll read it.

I usually do this:

1. Have a subject I want to learn say Game Theory

2. Google phrases such as "Best Game Theory books/textbooks".

3. Collect the links and bookmark them.

4. Look up the best ones on amazon, read some reviews, and pick one or a couple.

this tactic works well in conjunction with other general strategies for reading books, particularly if you can source them from the library:

start reading a whole bunch of books at once. stop reading the ones that aren't working for you.

I use a lot Amazon suggestions based on my last orders and also friends referrals.

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